Aidan Coleman
Aidan Coleman teaches English at Cedar College in Adelaide. He is currently completing his second book of poems with the assistance of an Australia Council New Work Grant.
Astrocytoma
like the worst thing you ever did at school
the news comes steep and ashen
brisk mind to hurt mind
face to broken face
the pea
uncancelled by forty mattresses
clicks the past into place
leaves the future (whatever that was)…
Void
It was one of those restaurants where fish with heads like buses
were bumping against the glass.
I found myself stalled on annihilation;
of things going on despite me, of you alone.
Amongst the talk and laughter of others,
I stared and stared, and couldn’t blink.
Post-op
The head I wake in is airy and painful.
There’s still work going on in there.
Last night, a circle of numbers
and hammers,
forever
slanting away.
I clutched my bowl and sat it out;
thought about another year.
This morning: birds and fair-weather light;
a calm I can’t meet
with my eye.
Meat, sick, disinfectant on/off through the air.
In the next room people are talking about me.
They’re talking inside of my head.
Steroids Psalm
I am fearfully and wonderfully made
The delicate thread of each breath become rope
At night I glow with a Holy insomnia
In the ripe air I taste your promise
So many plots and schemes
So many plots and schemes
Now back from the dead
I have to tell you these things
I have to tell you all of these things
The walls of my room are effervescent
Shakespeare heads and butterflies
I walk through doors and mirrors and walls
Because so much is tied to earth
So much is tied to the earth
I am Henry V on the eve of battle
The guy who is in on the prison break-out
I’m Francis, Churchill, Robin Williams
People stare unconvinced
and I tell them…